She didn’t exactly scream class.
“Mum, my paycheck paid for those jeans. I’d appreciate it if you’d take them off, especially since you look ready to bust a seam.”
“They fit me just fine, thank you very much,” she said, barely sliding her fingers into the pocket as she tried to make a point. “And for your information, my paycheck goes toward the roof over your head and the food in your belly, so if I want to wear your damn jeans, I bloody well will.”
“I’m seventeen. It’s your job to put a roof over my head.”
She stuck out her tongue and picked a piece of tobacco off the tip, then flicked it at Megan.
“Sick,” Megan said, looking ready to cry.
I wanted to escape out the back door, especially since her mom hadn’t bothered to acknowledge me at all. Maybe she’d already decided she didn’t like me without meeting me. Unless, Megan had told her about what was going on.
“Seriously, Mum, those jeans are new and I don’t want them all stretched out. I don’t wear your clothes.”
“Fucking hell,” Megan’s mom said, balancing her cigarette on the edge of the side table, removing her boots by the heel-toe method, and then unbuttoning and unzipping the jeans, before wriggling out of them. Before I could blink she stood in hot pink lace panties. Throwing the jeans at Megan’s head, she left the room with a final “bitch” comment, and stormed off. A large heart with angel wings was tattooed on her lower back and disappeared into her panties. She had a banging body for her age, I’d give her that.
“Kill me,” Megan said, rolling the jeans up in a ball and walking toward the laundry room off of the kitchen. She reappeared a second later. “You’re so lucky you have Miss A.”
I
was
lucky to have Miss Akin, but I’d give anything to have my mom back. I wanted to tell her that, and maybe to add that she should appreciate her mom while she was here, but I didn’t want to go there. My mom had never called me a bitch, or wore my clothes, or made me babysit my brother. I get why Megan was exhausted by the relationship and was already excited to attend university. I would be, too.
Megan’s mom walked out a few minutes later, wearing a leather vest over the wife-beater, a pair of black pants that didn’t fit nearly as tightly, and a pair of four-inch heels. She reached down, picked up the motorcycle boots, and huffed them toward what I assumed was her bedroom.
“By the way, Mum—this is my friend Riley,” Megan said. “Ri, this is my mom, Lena.”
For the first time since I’d arrived, her mom actually looked at me. She had the same brown eyes as Megan.
“Hello, Riley,” she said, her gaze shifting over me, and I had the feeling she was taking in everything at a glance. I didn’t want to head-tap, but a part of me couldn’t help it. I was curious.
She had been used by men a lot in her life, and I got the feeling she wasn’t exactly the kind of girl who had a lot of close girlfriends, either. She was more comfortable in the company of men and took a lot of care in her appearance because she thrived on men’s compliments.
“Ice cream before dinner. Really?” Lena glanced at her son, before tossing the lighter into her crochet purse.
“It’s a snack, Mum. I probably won’t make dinner until after six o’clock tonight. Remember, I told you my friends were dropping by.”
“Only for an hour or two. After that, you need to get your homework finished.” Lena glanced at me. “You hear that, Riley?” Her voice was firm, but there was a quirk to her lips.
I nodded.
Someone knocked at the door and then walked in before Lena could answer it.
“Come in, why don’t you,” Lena said, scowling at Cass.
Cass stopped and gave Lena the once-over. “Uh, the 70s called—and they want their outfit back.”
“Bitch,” Lena said.
“Sllllluuuuuttt,” Cass replied.
My eyes widened, but Lena just laughed and slapped Cass on the butt.
Cait walked in and Lena smiled tightly. “Cait.”
“Lena,” Cait said, taking a seat to my right.
“I’ll be home at three,” Lena said, opening the closet door and taking a long sweater off a wire hanger. She said goodbye to her son and was out the door a second later.
“She seems nice,” I said.
Megan lifted her brows but said nothing.
Cass was already going through the cupboards. “I’m so freaking hungry.”
“I thought you were on a diet.” This came from Megan, who smoothed her hair back from her face and released a loud yawn.
Slamming the cupboard doors closed, Cass walked back to the chair and fell into it. “Thanks for reminding me.”
Beside me, Cait snickered. “Cass, you’re always on a diet.”
“Nice,” Cass said.
“You look incredible,” Cait replied, and she meant it. “And Johan doesn’t seem to be complaining.”
Cass completely blew off the last comment. She’d been quiet since announcing at Milo’s party that Johan wanted to hook up. There didn’t seem to be a lot of dating going on, but Cass didn’t seem to be complaining.
“My birthday party is coming up in a couple of weeks and I want to look good.”
Megan got us all some tea, and we were talking when Milo walked in. “Ladies,” he said.
Cass looked at Megan with a frown. “
Really?
I thought we were going to discuss some things.”
Milo slapped a hand over his heart. “Jesus, Cass…it’s nice to see you, too.”
Cass rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Whatever,” he said with a grin. “I know you love me.”
“Milo, you want to play video games in my room?” Megan’s little brother asked.
“Let’s play, kid.” Milo picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder. He glanced at Megan. “Don’t be too long. I have to be home by five.”
We waited until we heard the television in the bedroom turn on.
“Okay, time to spill about Johan,” Cait said the second she heard the door shut.
Cassie frowned. “What do you mean?”
Megan lifted a brow. “I saw you get into his car after school.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cass said, brushing a curl over her ear.
“We’re just giving you shit,” Cait said. “Hey, I’m not judging. Just admit that you’re tappin’ that ass.”
She pressed her lips together. “Well…we’re having fun together, let’s just say that. There’s no expectation—from either of us.”
I didn’t want her to get hurt, and I knew how much she liked Johan.
“Anyway, this weekend,” Cait said, scooting her chair closer to the table. “What time are we heading up the hill?”
Megan cleared her throat. “I don’t know if I can make it.”
Cait narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“I’m scheduled to work at the library and I really need the money.”
I didn’t doubt that for a second, and given Megan’s fear, I wondered if it might not be better if she stayed home. However, apparently Cait didn’t feel the same way. She shook her head. “That’s lame.”
“Just because you’re all into it, Cait, doesn’t mean that everyone else is.”
Cait glanced at Cass. “What about you. Are you bailing, too?”
“I’m free Saturday.” Cass put on some lip gloss and pressed her lips together. “Just promise you’ll have me back come Sunday morning, in time for car shopping.”
“No one’s making any promises.” Cait sounded so serious that it took the mood down a notch. “I think only people that want to go should go.”
“We’d be down to just the two of us then,” I said, almost adding the word “again”. “Well, and Kade and Shane. If Megan doesn’t go, then I seriously doubt Milo will.”
Megan didn’t say a word.
Cass leaned back in her chair. “I just don’t know how safe it is to go searching for this ghost.”
“We’re searching for her grave so we can bind her spirit to it and finally give us all some much needed peace.” Cait sat up straighter and folded her hands together on the table, all business. “We have a good idea where the grave is, so it shouldn’t take too long.”
“Maybe I’m just not as brave as you are.” Megan sounded irritated. “This scares the shit out of me. Maybe I’m afraid of what she will do if we’re all out in the middle of the forest where apparently she and her buddies practiced dark magic. And what if we fail and then things really start to escalate? I know I mentioned it before, but I have to think about my brother. He’s so little. Is this going to start affecting him?”
I honestly didn’t have the answer to that question. I wish I did. I knew one thing—I wasn’t going to force any one of my friends to go searching for Laria’s grave.
Chapter 12
Friday night the storm came in. Thunder and lightning rocked the inn, and I braced myself for the evening ahead. From what I’d read, spirits manifested from energy and a storm would leave a charge in the air.
Great. I could hardly wait. I had hoped that at least one friend could spend the night, but Mrs. MacKinnon was obviously not too sure about having her daughter stay again two weekends in a row, not to mention she was probably on to the fact that Cait liked Shane, which didn’t bode well for any future sleepovers with me.
Megan had to work, but I figured it was just as well. I didn’t want her going when she was so uncomfortable about it. She had been through enough already.
The football game had been canceled due to the weather, but the coach had called a meeting to run through some video on their past game instead.
I packed items for tomorrow, including the nail and hammer, and I’d looked up a few extra blessings I’d found in a book Megan had brought to school yesterday. I’d typed them word for word and printed them out.
Miss Akin had gone to bed early, saying she was anxious to dig into her latest feel-good mystery series. Waiting to hear from Kade, I organized my drawers, and when I saw my camera, I pulled it out and walked to the window and pulled back the drapes. I remembered the last time I’d stood by the window when it was dark and how Laria had been hanging upside down staring back at me.
My heart hammered in triple time as I snapped pictures of the hillside and the castle. The lightning became more intense, and for the next ten minutes I took nearly two hundred pictures.
I focused most of my attention on the castle. When the lightning let up, I closed the drapes and fell into the chair.
I scrolled through the pictures. Many of the images were too dark, but when the lightning had hit just right, the entire frame was filled with light.
There was one particular picture that intrigued me—a bolt of lightning above the sky, directly behind the castle. The lights were on in nearly every single room, and the ground lights were on, as well.
Frame after frame, different colors emerged, and then one photo made my stomach clench. The castle was cast in red, and in the yard there were what looked to be a group of about six people standing by a tree.
The next frame was the same, but in the frame, along with those six people was a body hanging from a tree.
My blood turned to ice.
I had to get a better look. I rummaged through my desk drawer, looking for the camera cord that would hook to my dad’s computer and bring up the pictures so I could get a better idea of what I was looking at rather than on the camera’s two by three inch viewer.
When I didn’t find the cord there, I went to my closet and sifted through the junk boxes that had been put up on the very top wooden shelf. Standing on the tip of my toes on my vanity stool, I went through each, wading through my sixth grade diary and nostalgic memorabilia. I was on the last box and losing hope that I still had it, when I finally found a few different cords. One looked promising. I tried the small end and it slid into the camera. “Yes, we have a winner.”
I raced down the steps to my dad’s study, making sure to close the blinds on my way past the window. I hated how his computer faced the wall, so your back was to the door. My mom had always had a thing about facing a doorway so she could see who was entering the room. I completely agreed with her wanting to see who was walking in.
I moved the monitor slightly, so I could at least see any movement in the doorway from the corner of my eye. I plugged in the camera and it immediately started downloading pictures.
I watched expectantly as the pictures flashed before me.
When the last photo finally appeared, I went back to the very first one. The photos of the hillside were still pretty dark. I hit the editing button that brightened the page and looked closer.
One by one, I went through the pictures. It wasn’t until I came to the pictures of the castle did the entire feel change. The first dozen pictures the sky was lit up, and then the hue of the pictures started changing to a reddish tone and the figures started appearing in the photos.
There was the suggestion of movement from the castle’s courtyard toward a tree, where someone was strung up and hanged.
If I wasn’t mistaken, I had cut beneath that same tree, or damn close to it.
Bile rose in my throat.
My heart pounded hard against my chest as I brightened the photo and zoomed in on the figures.
Oh my God.
I felt the blood drain from my face. It was still a distance away, but there was no mistaking the long hair of the woman hanging in the tree or the long gown.
My attention turned to the people who had participated in the hanging. All were men. My gaze was drawn to the castle, and specifically to the window where a silhouette of a person stood in the upstairs window.
My mind raced. That room had been where Margot Murray had been staying during her visit.
A creaking sounded behind me and I let out a gasp.
“Hey,” Shane said, as he slid his backpack off his shoulder. He was soaked to the skin. “What are you doing?”
I rested a hand against my chest and tried to relax. “I took some pictures during the lightning storm.”
He walked over to me, leaned over my shoulder. “How come it’s red?”
“I don’t know…but that’s not the most interesting thing about the picture. Take a closer look. In fact, let me start from the first frame.”
Intrigued, he leaned in closer. Frame by frame he watched, and when I got to the frame where the sky turned red, he tensed.